Made in Woodstock: Printmaking from 1903 to 1945

Not only was Woodstock an important center for painting, but it is generally not known that the colony was a haven for printmaking as well. This exhibition traced the richness and diversity of original prints made in Woodstock and its environs. At the same time, it celebrated the centennial anniversary of the founding of the arts and crafts colony of Byrdcliffe, the earliest of Woodstock's artist communities, founded in 1902. Arranged chronologically, the exhibition began with prints by members of Byrdcliffe, including painter and teacher Birge Harrison and designer Zulma Steele. It continued with prints of the 1920s and early 1930s where the Old World fine print tradition of Byrdcliffe co-founder Bolton Brown, Alfred Hutty, R.W. Woiceske, and others was paired with the modernist aesthetics of Konrad Cramer, Paul Rohland, Emil Ganso, Albert Heckman, Ernest Fiene, and John Flannagan. The modern woodcuts and linoleum cuts found in the Woodstock magazines The Plowshare, begun by another Byrdcliffe co-founder Hervey White, Hue and Cry, established by Peggy Bacon and her husband Alexander Brook, and Woodstock Almanac were surveyed.

The exhibition, which included prints by these artists and many others, contained 53 works and a number of magazines. It was also accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue with an essay and checklist. Organized by Patricia Phagan, the Philip and Lynn Straus Curator of Prints and Drawings, the exhibition comprised works drawn from the collections of the Woodstock Artists Association, the Woodstock Guild, the Winterthur Library, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and other institutions, as well as numerous private collections.

The exhibition was sponsored by the Smart Family Foundation. There are works that appeared in this exhibition that were loans to the Loeb and therefore do not appear on this website.